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Israel Pounds Gaza as Hamas Threatens to Execute Hostages; Today: Biden to Deliver Remarks on Hamas Attack in Israel. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired October 10, 2023 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

[06:00:32]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And we do begin with our breaking news. We're glad you're with us. It is 6 a.m. here in New York City. It is 1 p.m. in Israel. And here is the breaking news that developed overnight.

Israel pounding Gaza with another wave of air strikes, despite threats from Hamas to execute hostages. Israelis' prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says the strikes are, quote, "just the beginning" of Israel's response to the Hamas attack. They say fighter jets struck more than 200 targets.

Up to 150 hostages, including Americans and children, are believed to be inside of Gaza right now. Hamas is threatening to kill them on camera in retaliation for the strikes.

And there are growing signs that a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip could be coming soon. Israeli troops and tanks have been massing near the border. A military spokesman tells CNN a ground offensive could be necessary to stamp out the Hamas terrorists.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. COL. JONATHAN CONRICUS, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES INTERNATIONAL SPOKESPERSON: At this stage, we continue to strike from the air. And there are plans to, of course, expand that. And the troops, the reserves, and the regular units that are amassing along the Southern border, are readying for their tasks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And we want to go straight to Nic Robertson, who is live on the ground.

Nic, right now, what are you seeing? You are in one of the liberated kibbutzes with the general who helped take it back. What's the latest, Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Exactly. I'll just give you a sense of where we are. Just going to get John over to the (inaudible) and you can see the smoke there rising. That sets the scene. That's Gaza. That's how close we were.

Those are the gates where Hamas broke into this kibbutz area. And standing right next to me is the general.

You were retired. You came from our home. You were here by 9 a.m. Saturday morning.

MAJ. GEN. ITAI VERUV, ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCES: Yes, 9 Saturday.

ROBERTSON: What did you find? What did you do?

VERUV: Actually, I tried to come to the -- to the territory (ph) and on the road in my way, I stopped by two or three motorcycle, with (AUDIO GAP) -- and another pick-up behind them. I found some policemen that was in the road, and we start fighting against them, kill some of them. Lost one of our people that I even don't know his name.

And then I start fighting in Tihini (ph), a moshav, or village not far from here. And then from battle to battle.

ROBERTSON: And when you get here what -- what do you find? You've just been showing us.

VERUV: I didn't fight here. I fight in Gaza. I fight in other kibbutzes and places. And what I saw, hundreds of terrorists, is full armor, full gear, with all the equipment and all the ability make a massacre, go from apartment to apartment, from room to room and kill babies, mothers, fathers in their bedrooms.

ROBERTSON: You were telling me some of them -- when you went in, their hands were tied together.

VERUV: They locked themselves in the protection (ph) rooms or the bottom (ph) of the house. And people are out with their children, and they kill them. They kill babies in the front of their parents and then kill the parents. They kill parents, and we found babies between the dogs and the -- and the family that killed before him. They cut head of the people. And --

ROBERTSON: This -- this is the first time -- I mean, when did you secure this area here? Was it late last night?

VERUV: So we fight here wave after wave of terrorists until last -- last night.

ROBERTSON: And is this area here -- we're looking at the border -- is this completely clear? Can you be 100 percent sure no Hamas activists here?

VERUV: I learned in the last two day that 100 percent is not part of the game. But we try as we -- you know, as we -- as we can. And now it's more secure. And we wait to switch, to -- to switch ourself from the defense. Because you know, we defend our people. And until now, we collect --

ROBERTSON: You say you're going to attack. Will you be going into Gaza itself? We can see it here. Look, it's just on the horizon.

VERUV: You know, I look to the next 100 yards. This is my --

ROBERTSON: You take care of the next 100 yards.

VERUV: Next hundred. I fight for the next 100 yards and then look forward.

ROBERTSON: Did anything in your career prepare you for what you saw here? I mean, we've come in, and houses are blown apart.

VERUV: So first of all, I prepare myself to everything. And yes, I have all the skills also, but I never saw and I never imagined that something like this could happen. And I never could imagine.

You know -- I heard during my childhood about the pogrom in Europe and the Holocaust, of course. All my family came from -- from Europe and they are survival, et cetera, et cetera. I never think that I would see in my eyes picture and things like this.

[06:05:13]

ROBERTSON: And how do you feel about it, now you've seen it? I know you're a 39-year career professional in the military. You've been out, retired, out of service for eight years.

VERUV: It's not time for feeling. It's time to do and make our mission. Maybe later on, we will take time to -- to think about ourself and about our assault. Now I only want to fight in defense and attack. And --

ROBERTSON: Can you get the hostages back, do you believe?

VERUV: I hope so. We have the commitment. We do our best.

ROBERTSON: Thank you. Major General, thank you very much indeed. Thank you.

We have been around -- walking around this area here for the past, I would say, 30 minutes or so. It feels like a fluid situation. There's gunfire. There's explosions.

But we're told it's for -- it's for our protection, that there's no imminent threat here.

But look over here. Look at these burnt-out vehicles here. Again, testimony to the ferocity of the fight here.

We've just seen bodies that are being taken out of some of the houses, of some of the young families that were here, being loaded and taken away.

This is really only just the clear-up phase. This is now a militarized area. There are hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of troops now in this, what was until Saturday morning a peaceful village. I mean, just look over here at the houses. Don't go in. There are some

bodies, still, of Hamas here, so we won't -- we won't show those. But these houses here, you can see everything pulled, strewn outside. Lives brutally upended, killed in some cases.

But this is the picture all along the border with Gaza now. All these small villages, all these small kibbutzes that were along, close to Gaza, within a mile or so.

This is what happened. Hamas stormed them all. The populations are gone. The death toll here absolutely massive. But now back under control of the Israeli Defense Forces.

And they say that, even now, you just heard the general speaking there, even now it's not possible to say with 100 percent certainty that there are no Hamas here.

But it does feel like an area that is much more under the control now of the Israeli Defense Forces. An area that is getting more and more troops in.

There's a tank I saw just over the gate there before.

It is still a moment there when you pause and look at these terribly upended lives of the civilians who were living here. This is what Israel is coming to terms with. And this is what the general says is looking at the next 100 yards. And that's how it feels here at the moment.

HARLOW: Nic, as we look at what is around you, as you said, lives just stopped in a moment, someone doing laundry right there. We see, you know, children's toys. We see couches. Everyday life.

Can you describe for our viewers what you witnessed -- body bags, as I understand it -- coming out of these homes right before we came to you?

ROBERTSON: These were the smallest homes in the kibbutz here. These were the homes for the young families. And the general told me that when they -- when his troops got here -- and this is the end of the kibbutz that is closer to the gate with Gaza. So when the Hamas came in, these were some of the first buildings they went to.

People, the families were hiding inside. Parents, young parents with young children. And he said when they opened the doors and went in, they said -- he said some of them had their hands bound, and they'd been shot, executed.

This is why the death toll keeps -- keeps climbing here in Israel. Over 900 people now. Why? Because it's only when the military can take control of these villages that they can begin to find the cost of Hamas's attack, that they can actually get into the buildings that are in the community that's now secure and just find out how many families were slaughtered. And that's why the number keeps going up.

And, you know, when you -- when you talk to a career general of 39 years in the military, he himself just moved himself when he has retired, moved himself here as soon as he could on Saturday morning. When you see the tiredness in his eyes. I asked him before when he was rubbing his face, I said, "Have you had any sleep?"

It's like, No, not since Saturday.

These guys have been on the go. I think this is now where they kind of take a pause, take a breath. They brought a number of journalists in here today. We're on the team that they brought in. This is where they can pause.

[06:10:10]

But it's -- but it's a pause to move forward. It's not a pause to rest back. This is how it feels.

MATTINGLY: Nic, you asked the general about this, but what's your sense right now in terms of those who are dead and the numbers of dead versus those who have been taken hostage? Do they have any idea from the kibbutz where you are specifically right now?

ROBERTSON: They don't. There was -- there was sort of nobody left here to have a full picture and an accounting of what happened. So the situation happened in chaos.

And I think that's the -- that is the reality of the difficulty for the government and for the IDF right now, that there is -- there is no list. It's a very tough job to try to go through all those who have been killed and take them off the list of people who are missing, there's a question mark about.

And I think it's quite literally going to take some time before you can begin to say with certainty. Dozens is the figure that they're going with now. Other estimates have been much higher. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have both -- both claim to have high numbers.

But the reality of the situation is, until everything is taken account for -- we've just been told to take a knee -- just been told to take a knee, hearing an explosion in the background. I think we're just fine. I'm not hearing incoming at the moment. I'm not hearing incoming. And the general is standing up. So, yes. We're taking a knee.

HARLOW: Nic, if you need to take cover --

ROBERTSON: The IDF's in charge here. We got the all clear. We'll stand up.

HARLOW: Nic, at any moment --

ROBERTSON: We're good. We seem to be good. We seem to be good.

HARLOW: -- if you -- if you and your team need to take cover, please do. Nic, can you explain to us what you're hearing? Is it gunfire?

ROBERTSON: There was some -- there was some gunfire. There was some gunfire there. There are explosions. I'm hearing drones in the sky overhead. We heard fighter jets before. I'm hearing a fighter jet over there.

It is just a dynamic, fluid, battlefield situation, if you will. You know, if they say take cover, we'll take cover. But at the moment, it seems OK.

What we can see on the horizon is -- that was another detonation coming from Gaza. You can see plumes of smoke rising from Gaza. And this is what we've been hearing all night long, really, is just more and more heavy impacts coming from Gaza. That was another one.

You sort of -- there's a -- there's a synchronicity to it, if you will. You -- you hear the jets fly over, and then you can hear explosions coming up afterwards.

Just going to walk through to this area. Again, we're going to be careful going in here, because there are still bodies here. And we don't want to show those in graphic detail.

So I might just stand myself here. Bodies have been -- they're of Hamas fighters. We've seen quite a number of them around the kibbutz. Particularly when you come in, you can see there was a fire fight to get in here. The Hamas fighters seem to be sort of along the road, the approach road coming in here. Number of them dead there, their vehicles at the side of the road.

Here, deeper in, this is perhaps where they were trying to hold out, where some of the last -- the last gun battles were. And that's why the bodies are still here.

But you can see the buildings where people were living until Saturday morning. Until Saturday morning people were living here. This is -- this is what it's going to look like all up and down this border region here. Kibbutz after kibbutz after kibbutz.

We know that the government has helped evacuate civilians from about 20 different communities. We haven't seen any civilians here today. This is essentially a military zone now.

As I said before, hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of troops here. Heavily armed. We've seen heavy mechanized armor here. Tanks, we've seen here. But most of the troops that we're seeing here are real combat -- combat soldiers. These are the guys who are going to be at the sharp end of the spear when there's contact with Hamas.

They have been at the sharp end of the spear. This is where the sharp end of the spear was, driving Hamas out of this peaceful, residential neighborhood.

MATTINGLY: To that point, Nic, do you have any sense -- you were talking about how this is kind of a moment you've picked up where there's been an opportunity to exhale a little bit, given the fierce fighting over the course of the last several days.

Do you have a sense of when a ground incursion may be coming, if one is coming here? ROBERTSON: My personal sense, given what we've seen and having

experience being here before when there were ground incursions, the force posture is nowhere near ready for that. You need a lot more forces, a lot more preparation, and you need a political decision.

[06:15:13]

And we don't know if a political decision has been taken yet or what type of decision, because when the prime minister spoke last night, he did not say explicitly that's what he was going to do. He did not say explicitly there was going to be a ground incursion. It's certainly not off the table.

But I don't think it is going to be coming tomorrow. I don't think it's going to be coming this week. You know, I think you're looking at a period of time.

But again, it depends on the objective of a ground incursion. It depends what you want to do and how much area you want to take control of, how much area you want to search.

And it's going to come at a high cost for these troops, and it's going to come at a high cost for the people of Gaza. Hamas hides out among civilians. And it is impossible to have a fight to take out the Hamas leadership without there being civilian casualties inside Gaza. These troops know that.

Their discipline is to avoid that (ph) at all costs. But this is -- this is war. And it's -- it's dynamic.

But right now, yes. It's a -- it's a pause feel. And those orders for whatever comes next, they haven't come through. Or if they have, they're certainly not public at the moment.

HARLOW: Nic Robertson, thank you to you and your team for the extraordinary reporting coming from us -- coming to us from Kfar Aza, a kibbutz right on the border with Gaza. We will get back to Nic very, very soon.

Hamas militants received weapons and training from Iran. That is according -- according to multiple intelligence officials and reported by "The Washington Post" this morning. What this could mean for a potential escalation of the war.

MATTINGLY: And here in the U.S., Republicans on Capitol Hill gearing up for a showdown over the speakership. What former Speaker Kevin McCarthy said about the possibility of returning to his post. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:20:34]

HARLOW: You see the White House there, lit up in blue and white and standing side-by-side with Israel.

Just hours from now, President Biden will give a speech from the White House about the escalating war between Hamas and Israel.

CNN correspondent Jeremy Diamond is live in Jerusalem. Jeremy, obviously, our viewers know you from covering the White House. You are now in Israel covering this. And Biden is going to make a speech this afternoon, I believe, 1 p.m. Eastern Time. What can we expect?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it will be interesting to hear from President Biden today, because up until now, what we have heard from the president is really this expression of unwavering support for Israel in the wake of Hamas's deadly surprise terrorist attack in Israel this past Saturday.

President -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last night, in a prime-time address, made a point of calling out President Biden, thanking him for the continuous contact that he has had with him and for that very same unwavering support.

We know that that contact has happened at all levels: at the national security adviser level; the Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in touch with Israeli defense minister, as well.

And in particular, one of the main issues that they have to talk about, beyond how Israel is going to proceed with its response, its retaliation for these attacks by Hamas, is this question of hostages. And that's because, of the 100-plus hostages and captives that Hamas has taken into the Gaza Strip, we know that there are Americans. We don't know exactly how many.

But there are Americans, some of them dual American/Israeli citizens. And so that has been part of the coordination between the United States and Israel.

We're told that the United States has offered Israel intelligence support and surveillance support for its -- a potential hostage recovery operation. We don't know exactly how that is going to proceed, but that's certainly something that is very important to President Biden.

But one of my questions right now, as we prepare to hear from the president today, is how far will his support for Israel's military response go?

We have seen in the past, most notably in the last conflict in 2021, when President Biden started to express concerns about the high toll of civilian casualties in Gaza, urging Israel to exercise restraint. We have not yet heard that from President Biden.

And so the question is what is the tolerance for that from the U.S. Side going forward?

We know that as these campaigns continue inside of Gaza, there are going to be increasing civilian casualties. It is simply the nature of this kind of congested space in Gaza and the Israeli military targeting the Hamas targets in that very congested area.

So it will be interesting to see how much further the president is willing to go in that unwavering support and whether or not he calls for any kind of restraint.

MATTINGLY: Jeremy, you also had a very striking conversation with a young woman who survived the horrific massacre at the music festival. What did she tell you?

DIAMOND: Yes. I spoke with Michal Ohana from her hospital bed at Hadassah Hospital here in Jerusalem yesterday. She is a remarkable woman, Phil. She came face-to-face with Hamas terrorists multiple times, at one point running as bullets whizzed past her. She then was able to get into a car.

As they drove down the road, they came to a crossing; and there they saw four pickup trucks with, she said, 20 Hamas militants in each of those trucks who began then shooting at them. She ran out of that car, where she was able to finally find some cover behind a tank. Here is her describing that scene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAL OHANA, SURVIVED HAMAS ATTACK ON MUSIC FESTIVAL: I lied under the tank, because they surrounded us from every direction, because they saw the people on the tank. And the more -- the more of us there were, it was getting worse. Because a large group, they could just shoot at us.

Those of us who could go underneath did. And I did. And I thought I would survive there, but this is where I got shot in the leg. And I didn't even know where it was from, because everybody had blood on them, and I was covered with blood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And despite taking a bullet to the leg and shrapnel to her stomach, Michal considers herself one of the lucky ones.

[06:25:02]

I asked her how she made it out alive, and she simply said that it was a miracle, but she thought that she was going to die. In that moment of danger and agony, she said the Shema Yisrael, which is one of the most sacred prayers in Judaism, a prayer that you say when you believe that you are about to die.

And so it was remarkable to hear from her in her hospital bed. You know, I walked into that room, and she was initially so weak, so tired. But as soon as she spoke up to tell her story, she seemed to summon some kind of strength within her.

And she wanted to tell her story, but she also wanted to talk about her friends, including some who went back after they had already made it out safely from the festival. They went back to try and help their friends. A couple of those friends of hers were taken hostage or are still missing -- Phil, Poppy.

HARLOW: Wow. Jeremy Diamond, thank you for the reporting and for bringing us that interview. Appreciate it. MATTINGLY: Those questions about hostages remain. It appears

preparations for a ground offensive in Gaza are underway. Let's take a closer look at Gaza with retired U.S. Army Major Mike Lyons.

Mr. Lyons, appreciate you being here. To start, you know, we hear constantly about just how tight it is in Gaza, for lack of a better term. About 2 million people, an area about the size of Chicago. What complications does that bring for any type of ground offensive?

MAJ. MIKE LYONS (RET.), U.S. ARMY: Yes. I mean, tremendous. I think we're going to potentially see casualties and civilian casualties like we haven't seen since the Second World War, just based on what Israel has said.

They've declared war here. They've said -- use the word like "siege." Siege from military perspective means flatten. It means we're going to surround, choke off, you know, the supply that goes in here.

I want to talk a little bit about that courageous CNN crew. Because they're sitting right here in Kfar Aza here. And they're so close to that Gaza border here.

And what the -- what they're still under is missile fire is coming from on the other side. They still have capacity. Hamas is still firing rockets inside of Israel.

And so, the airframes you hear are Israel forces on kind of station, ready to go, ready to knock them out. But again, it just shows me they still have capacity. They've not stopped with regard to attacking Israel.

HARLOW: What are the biggest challenges for Israeli forces, if we do see the ground incursion? I think Nic made a very good point, because he's had years of experience covering the region, that in his estimation, they -- they are not amassed enough at this point for an imminent incursion. That's -- that's his read on the ground.

But whenever it may happen, if it does, what are the challenges they face once they get into Gaza?

LYONS: Well, I think, first of all, it's going to take them a while to wound up, as in part of a large offensive operation in the past.

HARLOW: Right.

LYONS: It's going to take days in order of 300,000 reservists have been mobilized.

And then once they go in, you know, what is their objectives going to be? Are they going to attack from different sides? Are they going to come from this side here, cut off Hamas troops?

Obviously, this is where the center of gravity is in here with regard to where the Hamas troops are.

But I think Israel has got to be very concerned overall about, from a strategic perspective. They have potentially -- they have enemy here coming in this direction. They have Hezbollah coming up from the North. And if they can mass troops in the West Bank, this is going to be the problem here of trying to fight war on three fronts. And that's why they've called 300,000 troops up.

So they have to be able to put troops in all these locations.

Once they get -- go back to Gaza, once they get into this location here, it's going to be street fighting, house to house, and again large civilian casualties.

MATTINGLY: Can we talk about the strikes that we've seen over the course of the last several days?

LYONS: Yes.

MATTINGLY: There have been air strikes. We've seen numerous strikes in very specific facilities, at least according to the IDF and what their targets are. What do those tell you?

LYONS: Yes, yes. They're going after, if you look at some of the things. These are mosques now. So they have -- they're taking everything off the table with regard to, you know, collateral damage again.

Normally, the military wouldn't attack these kinds of targets. They're saying they are clearly military targets. And in this case, they're leaving nothing behind.

You know, in the past they would be more discriminate with regard to what they would go after, specific things. Here, they're literally leveling all the kind of targets they're going after. There's nothing left now.

MATTINGLY: And those are both mosques that you're showing --

LYONS: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- in the before and the after.

LYONS: Before and the after. Yes.

HARLOW: On Saturday, there were some rockets fired from Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon into Israel. Then there was a bit of a pause, as Secretary of State Blinken said. And then yesterday, seeing more. Can you speak to the complication of trying to fight Hezbollah in the North of Israel while doing the rest?

LYONS: Yes. That's really what Israel has got to be concerned about, because they'll have to put troops to the North here. And that's -- this is where they would come from here.

And then also, it would introduce -- we've warned now, the Syrian government that says, Look, if we -- if Hezbollah decides to come in -- and they're good fighters. They've been part of the Syrian civil war. They have that kind of experience. Then it opens up, potentially, a front where Damascus becomes a target

in this area here.

I think Israel is going to be forced to put ground troops up there. What Israel's advantage here, in this conventional war, is shock effect. They bring tanks. They bring air power.

The problem is the enemy is not fighting that kind of battle.

HARLOW: This isn't conventional.

LYONS: Exactly. That's it. And that's why they're so concerned. This is -- they prepared for a war that they didn't get. And that's really why they're in the situation they're in right now.

HARLOW: What are Hezbollah's capabilities compared to Hamas? Because yesterday --

LYONS: Better.

HARLOW: Better?

LYONS: Better, more, have greater capability. Again, still don't really have that shock effect, but they're good fighters. And there's -- there's --